Dreaming of frozen dinners...

I was having one of those days. You know what I mean, especially if you've been paleo for any length of time and have an autoimmune disease. For you - for me - paleo isn't just an 80/20 thing. We have to stick with it 99 percent of the time to maintain a good quality of life. Most of the time that's awesome. I'm thrilled beyond measure to have found something that works. Most of the time.

But sometimes it doesn't, or doesn't seem to, and because of the weather or the moon or the stars or who knows what, sometimes no matter how diligent you - I - am with this way of eating, our autoimmune diseases make themselves known. And that sucks.

After nearly three years on regular paleo, I've been on the autoimmune protocol version (AIP) for almost two months now. Fifty-six days, but who's counting. And it hasn't been the miracle cure for some of my lingering symptoms I'd hoped it would be. I've had a ton of days when I've felt great, but there've been more than a few when I've hurt. And hurting with rheumatoid arthritis is scary because you start thinking of the joint damage that might be taking place and worry that maybe you'll always feel this way and ... Well, it sucks.

Leading me to today. The absolute last thing I wanted to do today was cook. All I've done for the past 56 days is cook. Three meals a day: no cheating, no eggs, no nightshades, no prepared foods. And nary a miracle in sight.

What sounded good today was something easy, like a Lean Cuisine. The kind I used to buy by the dozen. Or when I got into "healthier" foods, an Amy's frozen meal. Just something I wouldn't have to do any chopping or boiling or baking for. Besides, some of them, let's admit it, were delicious.

What isn't helping is the looming holiday. We're eating out this year and I know that the place we're going uses wheat for some stupid reason when they brine their turkey. So I'll have salmon, which is delicious, but I'm damned mad already about the pumpkin pie. Or the lack of it. Last year I ordered a piece and just left the crust. It's always been my favorite part of the dinner and last year the delicious custard hit the spot. This year, strict AIP-er that I am, I can't do that because of the eggs. It's really pissing me off.

Fortunately, the one smart move I made all day was to start the crockpot first thing this morning. A round steak, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, the works. By the time I got into my huge funk this afternoon, even grumpy me couldn't ignore the awesome smell coming from the kitchen.

OK, if you insist, I'll have a bowl, I grumbled to myself.

Guess who made an incredibly delicious stew today? Feeling much better after a big bowl, I steamed some cauliflower and broccoli and somehow grabbed them off the water at the perfect moment. Not too soft, not too crisp. And that bag of yams I just bought, how about slicing one and roasting it in the oven?

Is that not a perfect meal? Am I not incredibly lucky to be able to afford such bounty? I know millions of people around the planet would love a dinner like that. The thought makes me incredibly grateful and humble. And I know this meal is the type that will heal my gut and nourish my joints and soft tissues and keep me on the path of healing from this disease.

I feel well-fed and more to the point, well nourished. And that's what keeps me eating this way. This kind of food, real food, feeds hidden hungers. I need to remember this for next time.

Zounds! Chicken Zoodles!

So, this may be the most delicious soup ever. And I have to humbly bow to The Meanest Momma for this wonderful recipe that is completely paleo-rific. You can find the whole recipe at that link, but here's the secret: the zoodles are zucchini "noodles," made by clever use of a julienne tool. I made my own stock from the chicken bones, natch, and it feels and tastes like soup that could really do a body good.

It's a mystery to me...

I've finally learned. Even though logically it seems no flour or other grains would be used in, say, grilling halibut cheeks or roasting a turkey, by now I know enough to ask. And sure enough. At our lovely upscale restaurant, the handsome server returned from the kitchen with dour news: the Thanksgiving turkey had been SOAKED in a brine containing flour.

Really? And why was that, exactly?

It turned out fine, of course. The salmon entree was beyond exquisite and I'm guessing the asparagus had a cube of butter per spear, so I was more than well-fed. But it still makes me wonder. How ubiquitous exactly is wheat? Even in preparations where it's clearly not needed?

Well, we know the answer to that, don't we? Anyone who's ever tried to go gluten-free knows the answer to that! And could that, possibly, have anything to do with our current health problems? I wonder.

Besides, I happen to know for a FACT, you don't need flour for roasting your turkey. It would be just fine without it. Good thing I didn't ask about sugar!

When 'cheating' becomes a way of life

So, I'm one of those people who, once we find something that works - like the way Paleo has kicked the ass of my rheumatoid arthritis symptoms - we stick with it.

Until, that is, we don't.

I am so ridiculously all or nothing that I could honestly say during the first seven or so months of switching to Paleo earlier this year that I had absolutely no desire to cheat. My improvement was so quick and so dramatic, my memory of sore hands and other joints so fresh, why would I cheat? Pizza? Chips? Absolutely not worth it, in my book. I felt great and wanted to continue to feel great. Those things were dead to me.

In fact, the whole concept of "cheating" irritated me. Who exactly are we cheating, I would muse to friends and family. Only ourselves. This works for me. I'm sticking with it.

Until, as I mentioned, I didn't. It started, as I've posted elsewhere, with a bout of food poisoning. I'm thinking I picked it up in San Francisco, while noshing at numerous odd bars with my daughter, but haven't been able to get confirmation. In fact, when I asked her if she'd suffered any ill effects, she said no, but pointed out that she wasn't the one eating chicken on a stick.

Yes, I did. Chicken on a very long, sharp, somewhat unwieldy stick. It was good. Especially with the sauvignon blanc. Probably not worth the weeks of not feeling right that followed, however.

And once you don't feel quite right, other things slip. I dallied with white rice. Nah. OK, how about commercially prepared applesauce and vats of almond butter? Good, but ... Not. Quite. Enough.

OK, how about ... chocolate? By this point, I had tested chocolate only once since February and found it didn't work well with my other paleo foods. I couldn't stick with just one high-cocoa content square, for one thing, and eating more just didn't make me feel that great.

In my not feeling quite right frame of mind, however, I had a thought: maybe Much Much More would do the trick, huh? Like entire bars of sea salt and almond chocolate. Or how about these awesome little natural food mounds bars I found with unsweetened coconut and uber dark chocolate? Sweet potato chips with who knows what additives? Chocolate coconut ice cream with tons of sugar? Yum, yum, and yum again.

By now I was so out of whack I couldn't tell what wasn't sitting well. I still never ventured into beans and grains, truly no desire to go there, but I started finding myself frequently driving to my favorite coffee place and ordering my old favorite cafe au lait. With Splenda.

And then I noticed something very strange: my hands began hurting. After the better part of a year of not hurting. It hurt to turn the handle of the door to my garage. Shifting gears hurt my thumb. Carrying things was harder, exercising was harder, just sitting and meditating with several joints throbbing was harder.

What had/have I done?

Well, to throw some compassion on the situation, I was/am human. And like most humans, I decided to venture beyond the bounds of the predictable. I feel good eating this one way, will I still feel good if I eat this other way? How about if I just dabble? How about if I dive face-first into a vat of sugar??

So, I got my answer. Big time. And a really sore thumb joint.

Tonight, dinner will be garlic-lemon halibut and steamed broccoli. Dessert will be a perfect honeycrisp apple. My remaining chocolate stash will be placed on the table in the break room at work tomorrow at 8 a.m. By 8:15 it will be gone.

It's great to be back on the paleo train. This lesson, at least, is learned.

IBS redux

It's so easy to write and rave about paleo when everything's going peachy. But what's bedeviling me lately is, what do I say - to friends and family and in this very blog - now that I've been feeling funky for a month or so?

Not awful funky, just... Let me put it this way. As someone who's had IBS off and on for years, the resolution of that problem instantly a day or two after starting paleo was a huge reason to stick with it. A miracle, really.

The way I explained it to people was to say that my "digestion" was sooooo much better. And so it went for more than six months. Me and my gut, finally BFFs.

Well, for some reason, suddenly my digestion is soooo not better. And it sucks.

Fortunately, Melissa at Hunt, Gather, Love, (www.huntgatherlove.com), has broken this ground already. She often discusses IBS issues and has written about how non-paleo foods like white rice seem to help people still - or suddenly - symptomatic. I bought a bag of basmati tonight. We'll see if it works for me, too.

Still, the whole thing is such a mystery. How could all the very same foods that have worked so well since Feb. 1 suddenly have turned against me?

Fortunately, now I'm far enough into this way of eating that I have many more reasons to stick with paleo than just IBS relief: great blood pressure, continued relief from RA pain, steady energy.

I love eating protein and veggies, it's simple and logical and works in many ways for me. I have to believe my gut will come back around, too.

Finally reading 'The Primal Blueprint'

If, like me, you've read every paleo/primal book in the world except this one, time to get it. Bought it on iBooks today and it is fabulous. Packed full of great info, all written intelligently and well. I should've known, considering the Mark's Daily Apple site and blog is one of the best and most readable out there. Thanks, Mark Sisson!

(p.s. I was excited to see how long it is! More reading pleasure!)

Parties and paleo

Traveling while on the paleo diet has been pretty well thrashed out in blog-ville. You prep plenty of TSA-acceptable stuff for the airplane, pack your walnuts and seeds and tins of kippers, and just hope that when your stash runs out you're somewhere you can get some nice eggs or a steak (or in the case of my recent visit to Chez Panisse, which proved to be very paleo-friendly, amazing sea bass and arugula salad, with the delicious berries you see to the right for dessert).

And if not, you do what I do, which hasn't proved too onerous so far, you skip a meal.

Give me a choice between a bit of a fast and a bag of those awful little "snacks" consisting of oddly shaped chunks of pretzel-type objects interspersed with round unidentifiable floury-type objects that Alaska Airlines persists in handing out, I'll go hungry, thanks.

But how about dinner parties? Particularly those hosted by lovely friends you'd just as soon not offend by sitting there with an olive on your plate while everyone else is scarfing up the homemade white bean soup and rosemary bread?

Happened to me yesterday, and honestly, it wasn't that bad. Bear in mind, however, white bean soup used to be to me as candy is to your average baby. I raised my kids on vats of thick hearty homemade navy bean soup, cooked for hours with bacon or ham and plenty of onions and garlic until it was practically a solid, content in my knowledge that it was, of course, one of the healthiest meals I could possibly feed them. Oh yeah, with plenty of my homemade, hand-ground whole wheat bread. Sigh.

Anyway, I'd warned my friend in advance about my new-ish eating habits, and so she warned me that she was planning on serving the aforementioned bean soup. But, she added, she'd also have plenty of salad, plucked from the incredibly verdant garden just outside her front door, not to mention veggies as appetizers, olives and berries, etc. And I contributed a lovely gourmet Italian hard sausage just in case any of us got hungry for some meat. It was delish.

Interestingly, not only did I have plenty to eat, but two people - including the hostess - pulled me aside at various points in the afternoon to ask for more details about this new way I was eating to battle rheumatoid arthritis. At our age, most everyone's heard about inflammation and given the brilliance of my friends, pretty much all of them would prefer to deal with any problems via diet rather than medication, if at all possible. We had great conversations and absolutely no one looked the slightest bit sideways at what I was - or wasn't - eating.

Long story short, don't see parties - or traveling or stress or a tough day at work (looking at you, Monday morning) - as reason to "fall off" paleo. I'm in this thing for the long haul and the results I've seen so far, in my c-reactive protein and SED numbers, my weight, and the way my various joints feel, is more than enough reason to pass on that lovely bean soup, thank you.

Post-plane paleo

You notice the crackers, beer and bread are on the other, non-paleo side of the table! Ah, but the meat plate with the perfect mustard... all mine. Also that gorgeous sauvignon blanc. This photogenic spread was at The Forge in Seattle.

AHS: Mind-blowing from afar

Despite being paleo for about six months now and seeing first-hand how miraculous it can be, it never really occurred to me to try to get to the first ever Ancestral Health Symposium, held in LA earlier this month. But after a few thousand #AHS tweets, blog posts and now video lectures, I can see I really missed out.

One of the lectures I just watched with Mark Sisson, aka Mark's Daily Apple, at http://vimeo.com/27648777, summed up everything good about paleo. Which is to say, everything.

I think the reason I love this whole movement is... it's so unlike a movement. It's like Groucho Marx said, I wouldn't want to be part of any organization that would have me. But it's not an "anti" sentiment, really, it's more that many of the paleo folks seem to be too busy living really interesting, intelligent, active lives to care if this is a "movement" or not.

Mark Sisson's talk, for example, was about play. I love that! Completely unpretentious. And it was fascinating! For example, did you know the average hunter-gatherer, after doing everything necessary to get him or herself fed and sheltered, had about six free hours each day to play? Do you have six free hours per day to play? And no, TV and Facebook definitely don't count.

Of course, it's really tough not to notice how great all the paleo people look. Yeah, their bodies tend to be, well, fantastic, but there's also an interested, curious alertness to them that's wonderful to see. And that seems to be true, regardless of age.

What I'm thinking may be part of the reason is that, as they - we - cut the crap out of our diets, we also cut it out of our lives. I made a gorgeous stir-fry tonight, for example, with chicken and dark green broccoli and ginger and carrots and garlic and cauliflower... and the last thing I wanted to do afterward was sit around and watch TV.

I felt good, really good. Energetic. So I went for a walk and met a woman trying out her new slack line in a park nearby. We talked for a while and now I'm wondering ... well, you know what I'm wondering.

My point is, it's all connected. And I can't wait to see where it goes from here. One thing's for sure: sign me up for AHS next year!

As paleo as it gets...

Yep, that's Mt. McKinley, aka Denali, aka the Great One. It's a stupendous mountain, and when it's "out," which is what Alaskans call it when the clouds part and you can see it like this, it's cause to stop the car and pay respect.

Auto-immune Paleo?

Striving to do a stricter, auto-immune version of the diet, and find myself - for the first time - really struggling. My go-to foods for the past six-plus months have been: eggs, nuts, more nuts, almond butter. Of course, I eat all the other stuff, the fish, the meat, the veggies, berries, reasonable fruits. But when I have the munchies, it's been nuts and almond butter. And a hefty plate of eggs has started virtually every morning since I started this on Feb. 1 this year.

But this morning I started with some chicken and baked yam. And tomorrow will probably be salmon and broccoli. It's weird and not entirely filling. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it?

Julianne's Paleo & Zone Nutrition Blog was my inspiration. She's having great luck with it. I shall persevere.

Another Paleo blog, seriously??

Well, yes. This one, you see, is from Alaska, and if there's anything we know about in Alaska, it's eating good, wholesome food straight from the land...

Actually, that's a lie. We're just like anywhere else. We eat crap, and plenty of it. And we have the waistlines to show for it. Our kids are overweight and obese (those are two different things, and the only reason I know that is my job. More on that later) in record numbers. My fellow adult Alaskans have been packing on the pounds in recent years, too. More to the point, we - like the rest of the U.S., like the rest of the world... except, apparently, France - are overweight AND unhealthy. Fat and sick. Lovely.

That's where the fun ends. Because while I like to nosh as much as anybody, I do not like rheumatoid arthritis. And that's what I've got. One nasty surgery later to repair tendons severed by the sharp edges of a bone eroded by this stinking disease, I decided I had to make some changes.

Long story short, those changes led me to Paleo. Where, I might add, I'm very happy. And, to hear my blood tests tell it, healthier too. My hands don't swell and hurt like they did. I don't hobble on sore feet like a little old lady through my office parking garage. I just, in general, feel a lot better.

I'm learning things all the time about this new way of eating. What works, what doesn't. And more importantly, why. This blog, I hope, will be a place where I can share some of that info - and ideally learn from others, too.

If you've found this blog, welcome. I hope to make reading worth your while.